5th Metatarsal Bone Infection

Hi, this is Dr. Don Pelto. I want to talk today a little bit about this condition of having an ulcer on the bottom of the foot. As you can see in this picture, there are a few of the bones that are missing

on the metatarsal heads. This patient previously had ulcers on the bottom the foot and I had to take out the central portions of the metatarsal heads. When this happens, there is a problem. What happens actually is that there is a different pressure distribution and then as you can see on this next picture, he developed an ulcer on the outside of the foot. Because of this ulcer, it made it difficult for him to wear shoes. He eventually healed the central wounds, but then he had this new one which is called a transfer lesion. This typically happens because, as you can see, there are only two bones there available for him to put pressure on. He put the pressure on the outside one. Now what happened is this developed into a bone infection and that bone needs to come out. As you can see, this picture has an ulcer on the side and if you look at the top you can see the arrangement of the foot. Once we take out that bone, the potential is for that to transfer over to once again the big toe area and if that happens, the next step for this patient is to actually have a transmetatarsal or a midfoot, we call it an amputation. So this is just an example for you of a hard to heal foot and something that you may be familiar with or want to learn more about. If you found this helpful, please download your free guide at healmyfootwoundfast.com.